Men's Hockey Comes Up Short Against Merrimack

Saturday, January 3

Providence, R.I.

7 p.m.

Brown University

3-12-0

Merrimack

9-10-0

Merrimack

Brown

Photo by: Brown Athletics

Men's Hockey Comes Up Short Against Merrimack

1/3/2026 10:45:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score Photo Gallery

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Ryan St. Louis scored twice, but the Brown Bears (3-12-0, 2-6-0 ECAC) came up short against the Merrimack Warriors (9-10-0, 4-7-0 HEA) Saturday night at Meehan Auditorium.

"All we can focus on right now is the process, and I thought we did enough good things tonight to be successful. We were better defensively, and we mixed up the lines and might have found some things that work," the Class of 1975 Head Coach for Men's Hockey Brendan Whittet '94 said. There was some really good hockey played; we just need to find a way to win. We're always right on the cusp, and it's being able to understand that every battle, every shift, every penalty kill and power play might be that moment that changes the game.

We battled, hopefully we get some of the injured guys back moving forward. We're down to 12 healthy forwards. For us, we have to take positives, not dwell on the negatives, correct what we need to correct, and just understand it takes a little bit more and we'll eventually turn these one-goal losses into wins.

"Our guys are learning, we're very young, and there's a lot of new faces and we're trying to find our way. We're not where we want to be, but if we play how we did for long stretches tonight, we'll be fine."

St. Louis opened the scoring 46 seconds into the game with his fifth goal of the season. The captain finished off a rebound off Ivan Zadvernyuk's initial shot to beat Merrimack goaltender Max Lundgren (29 saves). Tanner Hartman added the secondary assist on the goal.

The Warriors tied the game 15:12 into the first period after Justin Gill's centering pass ricocheted off a Brown defenseman and snuck through goaltender Fred Halyk (34 saves). Cam Kungle and Nick Pierre were credited with the assists on Gill's sixth goal of the season.

Ty Daneault gave Merrimack a 2-1 lead 11:08 into the second period with an unassisted breakaway goal off a Brown offensive zone turnover.

St. Louis tallied his second goal of the game with 2:38 remaining in the middle frame, finishing a beautiful feed from Matt Desiderio for his second multi-goal game of the season. Zadvernyuk added the secondary assist for his second point of the night.

Pierre scored his tenth goal of the season and the eventual game-winner on the power play with 10:15 remaining in the third period to give Merrimack a 3-2 lead. Trevor Hoskin and Caden Cranston picked up the assists on the man-advantage goal.

GAME NOTES

Hartman and Zadvernyuk both extended their respective assist and point streaks to two games on Brown's first goal.
Zadvernyuk tallied his second consecutive and fourth multi-point game of the season.
The Warriors held a slight edge in shots on goal, 37-31, and a slight edge at the faceoff dot, 32-30.
Merrimack finished the night 1-for-2 on the power play while the Bears finished 0-for-2.
Tonight's one-goal loss marked the fourth such loss by the Bears this season.

The Bears return to ECAC play next weekend at home and host the Clarkson Golden Knights (9-11-0, 3-5-0 ECAC) on Friday and the St. Lawrence Saints (2-16-2, 1-7-0 ECAC) on Saturday.

Gallery: (1-3-2026) MIH vs. Merrimack (1/3/26)

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